Our perpetually moving ocean

A new NASA animation shows the global movement of Earth's ocean surface currents from June 2005 to December 2007. The animation was created using data from NASA satellites, direct ocean measurements and a numerical model developed by NASA JPL and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Credit: NASA/SVS.

Developed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., the visualization is based on a synthesis of a numerical model with observational data. The model was created under a NASA project called Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean, or ECCO. A joint project between NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, ECCO uses advanced mathematical tools to combine satellite and in-ocean observations with the MIT numerical ocean model to obtain realistic descriptions of how ocean circulation evolves over time. The visualization covers the period from June 2005 to December 2007.

ECCO model-data syntheses are being used to quantify the ocean's role in the global carbon cycle; to understand the recent evolution of the polar oceans; to monitor time-evolving heat, water, and chemical exchanges within and between different components of the Earth system; and for many other science applications.

These model-data syntheses are among the largest computations of their kind ever undertaken. They are made possible by high-end computing resources provided by NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.